


Between The Lines

by timesuck2000



Category: SHINee
Genre: (i forgot to tag that sorry - there is sex - it is explicit), Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hyung Kink, M/M, Phone Sex, Roommates, Sex, enlistment discussion, i mean fight me if you think Minho doesn't have a hyung kink a mile wide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 13:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16577000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timesuck2000/pseuds/timesuck2000
Summary: They haven’t talked about it. The thing that Jinki feels is hanging over every decision he has made this year. Jinki’s impending enlistment.He can’t do it but he’s not in denial about why, his enlistment will be the first move in the untangling of their lives. The first step towards a future where their lives are separate and distinct, where Minho is just his dongsaeng and member instead of the biggest, most integral part of it.or as my working doc was labelled: AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES!





	Between The Lines

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic wanting to write a soft, easy fic about Minho and Onew living together for 10 years, but then I set it in 2018 and it quickly became apparent that there were things impossible to avoid. 
> 
> So here are some warnings: brief mentions of idol dieting and alcohol abuse, discussions of military enlistment, and depictions of anxiety and grief. 
> 
> and as a separate note, Jonghyun is obviously mentioned throughout so if you think that (or any of the above topics) will upset you, please take care of yourself and give this fic a skip (I promise you're not missing much). 
> 
> also if you think there are other things that should be tagged/have trigger warnings, please feel free to drop me a note at my socials (listed at the end) or in a comment.

Minho calls out as he comes in the door of their dorm, still flushed from basketball practice. 

Jinki is lying on the floor by the window, book he had been reading over his eyes—he’s freaking out. He thinks he’s been freaking out for over a year now. 

There is a low grade anxiety that burns in his chest these days. Constant. Sometimes, when the dorm is quiet, he thinks it will overwhelm him. Minho will come home, back from being a member of society, back from being around bright, engaging people like himself, and Jinki will have let it consume him. He wonders idly what would be left of himself. And then he thinks of Minho’s eyes in the wake of losing Jonghyun and he gets up and does the dishes. 

Today Jinki doesn’t get up, he’s been lying there on the floor so long that he feels that if he were to move the room would tilt. 

He’s sober. He’s been sober for 9 months and 13 days. That’s sort of the truth.

He’s had one drink in that time, when the four of them came back to the dorm after the funeral he had poured everyone a glass of soju. He’d thrown it up the second it had hit his stomach—Minho rubbing gentle circles on his back—then went to bed while the other three sat silently around his and Minho’s kitchen table all night. 

 

Minho comes and lies down next to him on the floor, he’s sweaty and radiating heat. He smells like he does in the mornings, when he’s sleep rumpled and complaining about going to the gym so early, rummaging around in the lounge for his baseball cap. When he squeezes his shoulder in morning greeting as they shuffle past each other. Bright and sharp. 

Jinki holds his breath for 7 seconds and then exhales, breathes in deep for another 7. Minho slowly matches his breathing to him.

Minho rolls onto his side and gently lifts one half of the book off Jinki’s face, peers under, his grin, when Jinki looks at it out the corner of his eyes, is cautious but genuine. 

Jinki is so fucking in love with him it hurts. 

He thinks there was probably a time when he wasn’t in love with Minho, back in the early days when they were kids and he was too exhausted and terrified to think of anything that wasn’t choreography or perfect interview answers, not letting his voice crack on mic. 

It’s just that it happened so gradually, happened so long ago, that he doesn’t really remember the last time in his life when he wasn’t in love with Minho. Now it’s just a constant, he’s Shinee’s leader Onew, his heart beats, he’s in love with Minho. 

“Hyung, have you eaten?”

They’ve lived together for over 10 years they don’t use formal language or honorifics, except sometimes Minho will call him ‘hyung’, will lay on a little aegyo, just because. Just because it will make Jinki blush and smile. Just because he’s a little shit.

Jinki groans tries to tuck his face into his book a little more. “Yah, I’ll heat something up for us, get up and get some plates out,” Minho’s already jumping up as he’s giving Jinki orders.

“This kid,” Jinki grumbles as he struggles to stand after being so long stationary, follows after Minho into the kitchen. 

“Did you do some slam dunks?” Jinki asks ruffling Minho’s sweaty hair as he moves behind him in the kitchen. He smiles as Minho makes his eye roll audible for him. 

“Yeah, I slammed so many dunks, Jinki, so many dunks. You—,” Minho looks at him out of the corner of his eye, “get lots of reading done?”

Minho is asking if he’s okay and he never wants Minho to worry so he say yes even though he really only read 2 pages and tells him about the book. 

Minho says it sounds smart and depressing and that lunch is ready so sit at the table, serves him a bowl of steaming kimchi jjigae that their housekeeper made them.

 

* * *

 

Minho is straight. This has been the truth Jinki has known since Minho was a gangly teenager who SM was marketing as the perfect boyfriend for noonas. 

He's been seeing a lot of footage from that time this year, impending 10th anniversary and all, and he can’t believe they fooled anyone into thinking they were attractive. Minho’s all long-limbs and serious face, him and Taemin always looking just shy of terrified any time the camera was on them. But he grew up into the visual SM saw in him, they all grew up.

Jinki is celibate. It’s a joke and a deflection for any time anyone gets close to asking. But it’s also kind of the truth. He’s also not very straight but it’s pretty much theoretical these days. 

There was a time when he was still drinking, when the five of them still lived in the dorm together, a time when he was less careful. 

He’d been out drinking with some of his hyungs, drinking the way he used to where he would black out and keep going. He’d woken up the next morning in his dorm bed, heavy arm slung over his side, he didn’t remember their name or where he met him. He’d thrown up in the bathroom and when he’d slipped back into his bedroom the man had been sitting up, looking round for his clothing. His jacket had been on the living room couch and when they had ventured out to find it, his members had been sitting around the kitchen table, deathly quiet. 

It was the biggest fight they ever had as a group, all of them angry at Jinki for being so reckless with their group’s future. 

Key ended up moving out not long after, taking pains to take Jinki’s face between his palms, to look him in the eyes as he told him it wasn’t because of who he was, just that he thought the space would make things better between them—between all of them. Taemin and Jonghyun had spent more nights at their family homes. Minho had stayed. Minho had been surly and distant for a few months, but he had stayed. 

Jinki’s stomach had ached the whole time. At being the cause of the argument, of being so reckless with the most important thing in his life—in the lives of 4 other people who were supposed to depend on him—of being their hyung and leader but not knowing how to fix it. But eventually, with Minho’s help, he’d stitched them back together. Rebuilt them stronger, as five equals, relinquishing the idea of what he thought a leader had to be in order to be what felt right, what fit for the five of them.

It was better, it was close to perfect. Key constantly hinted at men he had vetted that Jinki should ‘get to know’. Jinki always declined. He hadn’t put his members first once before; he wouldn’t do it again. There would be time for himself, a time to be Jinki instead of Onew, but it wasn’t now, it hasn’t been ‘now’ for years. 

Minho’s dated. Sporadically. They were always polite and beautiful and every time Jinki was introduced to one of them he always thought ‘this is the type of woman Minho could marry’. They hadn’t been yet though. Minho normally broke it off with them after a few weeks, a couple of months at most, he was just too busy he always said. He wanted to be the sort of boyfriend that put his girlfriend first, but there’s was always a new movie, the next comeback, he didn’t want to be the sort of boyfriend who was only ever on the other end of a phone. 

Jinki sometimes feels like Minho has unintentionally made him his practice wife. That, without realising it, he’s treating Jinki more as a loving partner than as his fellow member. Jinki knows he doesn’t mean it—Minho has a lot of affection in his muscled body, it needs to be released somewhere—Jinki is just the most convenient outlet. The thing Jinki would never admit, is that he kind of loves it. Loves the cosy pretend home they’ve made together.

 

Jinki’s spine is playing up, it’s nothing major, an old injury never given the time to heal and recently aggravated by the preparations for their impending comeback. He’s lying on the couch when Minho comes in, it’s late, he’s been so busy trying to wrap up all his projects in time for the comeback. 

Jinki has been dozing on the couch, not interested in dealing with the pain that would be involved with moving to his bed. He stares up at Minho when he moves to stand beside the couch, “Have you eaten?”. Jinki makes a noise that he hopes Minho will take for a yes. He doesn’t. “I’ll heat something up,” Minho says, moving towards the fridge.

“Don’t Min,” his voice is hoarse, it’s the first time he’s used it all day, “I’m not supposed to. Got to lose some of this weight, you know.” He gestures to himself in way that he hopes conveys that he knows that he’s carrying a little more weight than the average idol but that he’s also totally unconcerned about it. 

He is concerned. This comeback is important; he has to be perfect. There are people who don’t want him there, he can’t give them any more reasons to say that. 

Minho makes a noise in the back of his throat that sounds decidedly angry but doesn’t push the issue. Instead he makes two cups of tea and pulls some pre-cut celery and carrot sticks out of the fridge before sitting down on the floor, his back resting against the couch. 

He turns on the TV and hands Jinki his tea and the vegetables, “At least eat some of these,” he pauses as he flicks through some channels, “for me, hyung.”

“You should go to bed,” Jinki says, trying to be a good, responsible hyung. He runs his hand through Minho’s thick hair, scratches his scalp lightly where it’s resting on the couch beside him. Minho only hums so Jinki crunches through some celery as they watch reruns of Hello Counsellor in otherwise silence. 

When it moves from being quite late to _obscenely_ late for them to be up, Minho tucks his arm behind Jinki’s shoulders and helps him gently lever up and stand, uses that arm to pull him into a tight hug before they say good night and head to their bedrooms. Jinki gets into bed feeling warm, hunger forgotten, he doesn’t dream at all.

 

* * *

 

“I think I want a dog,” Minho say from the other side of the couch. He’s got his legs in Jinki’s lap, half an hour ago Jinki had cupped his hand around the delicate bone of his ankle and hasn’t moved it since. 

Jinki makes an affirmative sort of noise, a noise of ‘yes I heard you, yes I acknowledge that this is something you can want, please don’t talk about it anymore’. The last thing Jinki wants to do on one of their only free afternoons together is fill his brain up with thoughts of their separate futures.

“Don’t you think a dog would be fun?” Minho pushes, wiggling his toes into Jinki’s thigh. Jinki removes his hand from Minho’s ankle, pats at his knee to get him to move his legs up, suddenly feeling trapped under the weight of them. 

“Yeah, yeah, it just wouldn’t be fair of me, you know, timing wise.” He’s standing on the other side of the lounge now, he’s worried he’s going to start pacing as he lets his sentence hang in the air between them.

 

They haven’t talked about it. The thing that Jinki feels is hanging over every decision he has made this year. Jinki’s impending enlistment. He’s talked about it with his parents, the company, his hyungs, but every time he thinks to broach the subject with Minho his chest constricts, throat thick.

He can’t do it but he’s not in denial about why, his enlistment will be the first move in the untangling of their lives. The first step towards a future where their lives are separate and distinct, where Minho is just his dongsaeng and member instead of the biggest, most integral part of it. 

Jinki sometimes thinks Minho has been waiting for it, for a time when Jinki will be forced to part from him, so Minho can start living independently without the guilt of leaving Jinki behind. 

Minho wants a wife, Jinki knows this for a fact. Minho has talked about it openly in interviews and broadcast the way you can when something is a foregone conclusion; he will have a wife one day. Jinki can see her so clearly in his mind, she’s slim and athletic but full of aegyo, she’ll be sweet and docile, will want kids straight away. 

She’ll be easy in all the ways being tied to Jinki isn’t.

Jinki’s prepared for it, he’s got an apartment in a different part of Seoul. It’s empty except for a king size bed Minho bought him for Chuseok, his way of saying ‘it’s okay if you want to leave’. Jinki stayed. 

They don’t talk about the apartment; they’ve fought about it exactly once. They were fighting about something else, the kind of small thing that builds when you spend too much time with someone, until Minho was yelling ‘then why did I buy you that massive bed if you’re not going to use it?’. Jinki didn’t have a response to that, couldn’t say ‘I’m not ready to let go yet.’ 

The fight had bled out of both of them at once and they had retreated to opposite sides of the dorm for the afternoon to lick their wounds in solitude. 

Minho was heating up some dinner at the stove when Jinki had emerged again that evening. Jinki’s palms itched as he came up and stood behind him until he tentatively tucked his arms around Minho’s body to press his hands into his flat stomach. Minho stilled momentarily before going back to stirring. Jinki pressed his forehead to the place where Minho’s shoulder met his neck, whispered a soft ‘Mianhae’ into the skin above the collar of his t-shirt. 

With the hand not stirring their dinner, Minho linked his fingers with Jinki’s, pulling him closer to his back, making Jinki wrap his arms more securely around his middle. ‘Mianhae, hyung.’ 

 

Minho is looking at him now. “Hyung we should…” 

He looks young and a little scared and Jinki isn’t ready for this. “Min don’t” he doesn’t know what the rest of that sentence is, ‘don’t tell me something I already know’, ‘don’t break my heart when we were eating ramen and watching Running Man 5 minutes ago’. “Just a little more time yeah? We’ve still got comeback, we’ve still got time, right?” Jinki doesn’t even know what he’s asking for anymore.

Minho’s forearms are resting on his knees and he finally looks away from Jinki to drop his head down, stare at his fingers as he twists the ring on his thumb around. He sighs before looking up at him again, “Yeah hyung, we have time.”

Jinki has to get out of the dorm, he squeezes Minho’s shoulder as he goes past the couch. “Don’t worry, everything is fine. Hyung will bring back dinner.” They don’t talk like this, this careful, performative, closeness. They’re close in a more real way, in a way that speaks to the amount of years they’ve shared. But there’s safety in that language—even as Minho’s shoulders stiffen.

 

* * *

 

Taemin comes over for dinner and brings pho, it’s the fourth time in a row that he’s brought pho over for dinner and Jinki thinks that Minho might hit the roof. He slides his hand over Minho’s thigh, gives it a squeeze as Taemin clatters around their kitchen, talking non-stop about his day. 

Taemin brings the bowls over to the couch and makes Jinki move over so he can sit beside him instead of between them, it makes both of them roll their eyes—Minho in frustration and Jinki with endearment. Jinki nudges his leg up against Minho’s a few times as he shuffles over, a silent ‘he’s just riling you up’, a silent ‘let’s not have it out tonight’. 

Taemin is prickly in a way that Jinki has only ever observed and not experienced. Sure, him and Taemin have fought but it’s always been bursts of explicit anger from Taemin when Jinki’s unknowingly upset him, the rest of the time their relationship has always been gentle. He doesn’t know if it’s the age gap or just their personalities, but he’s thankful for it nonetheless. 

Taemin has always been prickly with his other members; he’d been so young when they’d started, never really saw the energy and worry they all put into raising him, keeping him as sheltered and safe as four teenage boys in their position could. 

Jinki thinks Taemin is starting to get it, starting to look back with a little understanding. 

 

He had turned up in the middle of the night months ago, before he left to film some variety show in America, let himself in and Jinki had woken up to him lifting up the covers to get into bed with him. It had been 2 in the morning and he’d been confused, thinking Taemin must have been drinking at a bar nearby before noticing he was in his pyjamas. 

Taemin is not small anymore, not in the way Jinki can remember from their debut years, but he still managed to tuck himself up under Jinki’s chin. Still half asleep and unsure of what was going on, if he was actually dreaming this, Jinki had just rubbed at Taemin’s back for a bit, started to drift back off to sleep. 

“I didn’t know and I couldn’t say it and he didn’t know.” Jinki had gone from 90% asleep to completely awake in a heartbeat. 

Taemin was sniffing into his chest, face hot and wet and not making much sense but Jinki had understood immediately, swallowed around a lump in his throat. “We know though,” he said quietly, made sure to keep stroking down his spine. “It’s okay, he definitely knew, you didn’t need to say anything.” 

Jinki wished he had thought to prepare for this, wished he knew what to say to make Taemin believe him, wished nothing had happened to bring this situation about at all. 

“I love you a lot, Taeminnie,” he’d whispered into his hair. “Jonghyun loved you a lot too, you know that right?” Taemin hadn’t answered, just tucked his face even closer into Jinki’s neck, so he had kept stroking down his back until he’d felt his breathing even out before letting himself drift off after him. 

 

Minho had been standing in the doorway when Jinki had opened his eyes the next morning. He gestured to Taemin, still curled up against his chest, confused. Jinki had shrugged a sort of ‘he’s fine, tell you later sort of shrug’ and Minho had nodded before pushing off the door-jam to start a pot of coffee.

When Taemin and Jinki had emerged, Minho had still been in the kitchen, leaning against the kitchen bench as he scrolled through his phone, apparently foregone his usual morning gym time. When Taemin shuffled in he’d put his phone and coffee cup down so he could crowd him, hang over his shoulder, talk to him in a baby voice as Taemin went about making some breakfast. Jinki had just smiled and watched them bicker good naturedly as he drank the rest of Minho’s coffee. 

 

Jinki still wakes up in cold sweats about that night, panicking that he didn’t say the right thing, failed Taemin by not finding the magic combination of words to fix him. When he’d talked to Minho about it the next day—after Taemin had spent the day on their couch, eating all their special snack food, before hugging them both fiercely and telling them each he loved them, face red as he ran out the door—Minho had sighed, running his hand over his face before pulling Jinki into a hug. 

“It makes sense” he had said into Jinki’s hair “We all have things we regret not having said, we all wish we could have said we loved him more.” Jinki didn’t know what to do, felt untethered and useless as a hyung so he’s tipped them both onto the couch and hadn’t let go.

 

Now Taemin’s slurping his pho in an almost obnoxious fashion and Jinki can’t bring himself to care at all. They’re discussing what the pairs should be for the balloon section of their upcoming fanmeet. Jinki already knows how it’s going to end up shaking out but he’s enjoying listening to Minho and Taemin’s increasingly passionate defences for their preferences. 

Minho eventually convinces Taemin that he would have more fun being paired with Kibum than Jinki, appealing to the amount of mischief he could make with the hyung who’s going to give him the best reaction. 

Jinki feels he should probably step in before they make some sort of blood pact over it and Kibum ends up murdering him for letting it happen. “Yah, I’m going up with Kibum,” he says eventually. “He won’t go up with either of you, he knows you’re going to jump around too much,” he says turning to Minho, “and I think he’s afraid Taemin is just gonna straight up tip him over the edge.”

He pats both of their knees, “You can have your death defying adrenaline junkie balloon and Kibum and I will have our nice calm balloon.” Neither Minho or Taemin seem overly enthused about the idea but they don’t argue so Jinki counts it as a win.

 

Talk soon turns to their comeback; Kibum’s been in the group chat about the styling and while it seems him and Taemin are on the same wavelength, Minho apparently is not. It’s possible this is what they’ve been arguing about in their group chat for the last three days, but Jinki had skimmed it once and closed out of it.

Jinki had taken a look at what Kibum and the stylists had put together and while he personally thinks the oversized suits are kind of silly looking, he’s never claimed to be particularly fashion savvy so he assumes what he thinks doesn’t matter all that much. His members look good in anything they wear anyway, so as long as Jinki can move easy enough in it, he’s happy to leave it to themselves to work out. 

His hair on the other hand, is taking some getting used to. Seeing his bright orange, choppy mullet every morning in the mirror is still kind of disconcerting if he’s being honest. Taemin had fallen to the floor laughing when he’d first seen it, which wasn’t exactly the biggest vote of confidence. Minho had looked like he was trying very hard not to do the same when he said it looked ‘very ...nice?’. Key had cocked his head to the side, said ‘I think it makes you look younger at least’ which Jinki wasn’t even going to try and unpack.

“I think I’m coming round on it,” Minho says he runs his hand through Jinki’s hair before setting his empty bowl down on the coffee table. “I think we just needed to get used to it, right?” he says tugging gently on the hair at the back of Jinki's head to get him to nod. 

 

“Are we going to keep the dorm when you guys move out?” Taemin asks out of nowhere when Minho starts picking up their empty bowls to take to the kitchen, Taemin should be the one doing it but they both know he was never going to offer. 

Jinki and Minho have sort of frozen in their respective efforts to tidy up the mess around them. “Uh,” Jinki has no idea what to say or why he started a sentence when he has no idea where it’s going, he would just like to get through one full day without having to think about their current or future living arrangements. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want them to give our dorm to someone else when you guys move out. It’s our dorm.” Taemin isn’t looking at either of them, eyes flitting round the room instead, “We’ve been here for like 10 years.”

When Jinki looks over to Minho, they share an incredulous look, “Taemin you haven’t lived here for what, 5 years?” Minho scoffs as he goes back to clearing their plates.

“It doesn’t matter! It’s ours. We lived here together and they can’t give it to anyone else.” Taemin seems to be getting genuinely upset now and Jinki has no idea how to defuse the situation, cuts a pleading glance at Minho. 

Minho puts down the bowls he was stacking and sits on the coffee table in front of Taemin. “Taemin-ah,” Taemin won’t look Minho in the eye, has tucked his hand around Jinki’s arm. “Look, me and hyung have no plans to move out of the dorm, okay?” Minho says looking at Jinki for confirmation. Jinki has no idea what his face looks like because that’s only sort of true. 

Yeah, they don’t have any plans to move out of the dorm. But that’s mainly because Jinki refuses to talk about it in order for plans to be made. They both know that their time in the dorm is coming to an end, probably sooner rather than later. 

“But when we move out of here, that won’t change what the dorm was to the five of us.” He has his hands on Taemin’s knees, is leaning forward into his space to be able to look into Taemin’s downcast eyes. Jinki thinks that Taemin wouldn’t allow it in any other situation, would shrug Minho off, but today he’s just staring at Minho’s hands. “It won’t change what we were in this dorm or the memories we made here.” Minho’s speaking in such a gently earnest way to Taemin that it kind of pains Jinki to look at him.

Taemin does shrug Minho’s hands off now, picks up the plates Minho had stacked, “I just think it’s stupid to give the dorm away when we still might need it when you guys come back. Where are we gonna sleep during promotions? Whatever.” Taemin finishes, dropping the plates into the sink. 

“I have to go, me and Jongin are going to play pool.” He says walking to the door and shoving his feet into his shoes without bothering to unlace them. Shouts out an ‘annyeong’ as he slams the door behind himself. 

 

“Well,” Jinki starts, Minho is looking at him with wide eyes, neither of them having moved since Taemin’s abrupt exit. “That went…” Jinki can’t think of a way to end the sentence, lets it hang instead.

Minho groans, “Yeah, fuuuuuuuuuuuck,” he lets out tipping forward from his seat on the coffee table, ends up with his face pressed into Jinki’s thigh. Jinki absently runs his hand through Minho’s hair, scratches at the base of his skull until he gives a shiver.

“Yeah... wanna watch the SSulzun episode from last week we’ve recorded?” Minho turns his face slightly to look up at Jinki.

He turns back round and smushes his face harder into Jinki’s thigh before letting out a sigh. “Yeah, put it on” Minho says, getting up so he can lie down on the couch before putting his head back into Jinki’s lap.

Jinki grabs the remote to turn on the TV and scrolls through their recorded programmes with one hand, letting the other thread through Minho’s hair again. Minho tucks a hand under the thigh he’s lying on, gives it a gentle squeeze as Jinki hits play. 

They’re getting through, they’re going to be okay.

 

* * *

 

After the months of diet and practice, comeback arrives with a punch. The first time Jinki gets back up on stage he thinks he might throw up, aches with longing to see Jonghyun standing with them again. Feels the absence of his voice through his in-ear as if it’s a knife. 

Even after the months of discussions the four of them had gone through, the hours of laying out the different sides and arguments, of everyone painfully baring their feelings for each other, Jinki still feels the same reservations on stage that he felt leading up to it. 

There’s a wrongness of celebrating their 10-year anniversary without all five of them that he feels can’t be overcome. But as they move through the first event of their comeback, singing songs from their last 10 years together, he feels the guilt lighten with each moment he spends on stage with his members and the crowd of their fans. It’s like he can feel the love and support pouring out of all of them, filling the building. It overwhelms him, but he also feels it blanket him, feels their protection in a way he hadn’t appreciated before. For the first time he actually believes in the decision they’ve made.

 

The comeback schedule is exhausting both physically and emotionally. Talking around the ever present absence of Jonghyun, navigating the line between acknowledging his place in their group—their love for him—and managing the immense pain that comes with speaking of him, doing his best to protect his members from it. Dealing with people, TV hosts and MC’s with such good intentions, who want to share their love of Jonghyun, to tell him their stories about how he touched their lives. Having to stand there and listen and thank them politely when all he wants to say is ‘I’m glad he meant something to you, but he was my brother and it feels like you’ve dug your hand right into my intestines.’ Having to deal with people not talking about him, their quiet pity. 

It’s all so draining that by the end of each day all four of them can barely speak through their exhaustion, resorting to gentle hands to reassure each other of their presence. 

Taemin comes back to the dorms with him and Minho most nights. Jinki is so drained that he lets Minho half carry him up to the dorm, puts in a cursory effort to move his feet as Minho tucks him against his side while he talks to Taemin is a low soothing voice. 

Despite being exhausted, Jinki has trouble sleeping after he pours himself into bed, lays awake staring at his ceiling for hours before he has to get up and walk around the dorm, stick his head into Taemin’s room to watch his chest rise and fall in sleep before moving on. 

When Jinki sticks his head into Minho’s room, his face is illuminated by his phone. “What are you doing up?” Minho asks looking up from his phone.

“Dunno, can’t sleep.” Jinki says leaning his head against the door jam. “You?”

Minho shrugs, “Wanna lay down in here?” pats the bed beside him. Jinki pushes into the room and gets into Minho’s bed beside him, stares up at the ceiling.

Minho puts his phone down on his bedside table and flops over onto his stomach, tucks an arm over Jinki. “You okay, hyung?” Minho half mumbles into his pillow.

Jinki turns his head to look at him, Minho’s facing him but his eyes are already dragging down. ‘Yeah Min, just….” 

Minho’s hand is spanning the side of Jinki’s chest, he rubs his thumb back and forth a few times, “Yeah” he mumbles. Jinki lets his eyes shut, matches his breathing to Minho’s deep steady rhythm. 

It’s okay, Minho gets it.

 

* * *

 

They’ve been in Japan for three days and Jinki has eaten so much good food he wants to cry. He kept to his diet for most of the Korean promo, six gruelling weeks of never ending days, fuelled only by steamed vegetables and tea. Trying to pretend to be upbeat and engaged when all he really felt was tired. 

But after all that, it turns out that it wasn’t just media lip-service when he said the promotions were healing. Being on the stage with the three most important people to him, singing for Jonghyun—to him—everyday, hearing the fans sing it back. It _was_ healing. 

By the time they leave for Japan, he feels like maybe the promotions are like re-breaking a bone so it can heal properly. Feels like maybe the pain was something they needed to feel to get through.

 

It’s weird being in the Japan dorm, weird sharing his living space with Key and Taemin again. After 10 years living together, he and Minho have their routine pretty much settled, the time they eat dinner, the soft low-key banter about their day, the cups of tea they drink on the couch while watching TV they have recorded to watch together. 

Being with Key and Taemin throws the whole routine out. Key demands Minho go out with him for dinner to meet up with some of his Tokyo friends. Taemin insists that Jinki sit with him as he watches TV. Jinki can’t follow Japanese TV, he’s getting better but he’s nowhere near as fluent as Taemin and it’s an exhausting exercise to undertake after having to do it all day. 

 

Jinki wakes up alone when Minho and Key get back to the dorm, Taemin must have gone to bed some time after Jinki fell asleep on the couch. Key calls out a ‘good night’ as he passes through on the way to his and Taemin’s room but Jinki’s sleep addled brain can only make a vaguely affirmative noise in response. 

Minho comes and stands over him by the couch, reaches a hand down for Jinki to use to haul himself upright. “You have a good time?” Jinki asks sleepily as walks behind Minho towards their room.

“Eh,” Minho says as he puts his hands on top of Jinki’s, where he’d tentatively placed them on Minho’s waist, and squeezes. “I was tired and they spoke Japanese the whole night, I only understood like 60% of the conversation.”

Jinki just hums as he looks at where his hands are gently framing Minho’s waist, feels Minho thread their fingers together as he tugs them down the hallway. 

They brush their teeth side by side, Jinki briefly resting his head on Minho’s broad shoulder. He gives the back of his neck a friendly squeeze before heading back to their room and stripping down to his underwear before getting into bed. Jinki picks up his phone to check his notifications while he waits for Minho to finish washing up but there’s nothing urgent so he makes sure to plug it into his charger before putting it face down on the low table between their two beds. 

Minho comes back to the room as Jinki is curling up underneath his covers and Jinki watches through sleepy half open eyes as Minho strips down to his underwear and folds his clothes over the back of the desk chair before slipping into what he wears to bed. 

Minho walks up between their two beds to put his watch, ring, and phone on their shared table and Jinki reaches a hand out to catch his bare leg, gives it a squeeze when Minho looks down at him and smiles before turning off the lamp and climbing into his own bed.

“Long day,” Minho groans as he turns onto his side to face Jinki. Jinki’s eyes are starting to acclimate to the dark and he can just make out the planes of Minho’s face. His bright eyes reflecting a little of the city lights coming through the crack in the curtains behind Jinki. 

“Tomorrow will be just as long,” Jinki says as he tugs his covers up over his bare shoulder.

Minho hums before closing his eyes, “Won’t go out tomorrow though. Let’s get sushi ordered in, I’ll call that place we liked last time.” Minho trails off into sleep and Jinki smiles at the thought of spending the evening on the couch with Minho, just like at home. It’s a pleasant enough thought to lull him into sleep as well.

 

* * *

 

The Japan schedule is not as packed as Korea but just as exhausting. It feels like they’ve been running non-stop for months and now having to spend every day speaking a second language—one arguably only Taemin and Key are truly fluent in—is tiring.

But they’ve always been treated kindly in Japan and their fans and hosts exemplify their generosity by laughing when Jinki makes a truly lame pun on their group name in greeting on multiple occasions. 

Key and Taemin alternate between pretending it’s not happening and laughing in embarrassment and they’re right, it is a truly bad joke, even by Jinki’s standards. But Jinki’s always been willing to sacrifice himself on the altar of coolness to break the ice and put his members at ease, to pull a laugh out of them. Anyway, it’s worth it for the way Minho folds his body in half as he laughs.

 

They’re coming to the end of their Japan schedule and with every event the internal mood of the four of them feels heavier. It’s the unspoken fact that each schedule is bringing them closer to Shinee’s looming hiatus. It seems to have imbued their whole camp with a sense of dread. Jinki hopes he’s not patient zero for it but he’s so overwhelmed with the thought of this way of life being over after 10 years, of everything he knows changing, that he can’t seem to do much else but try and plaster on a smile whenever he thinks someone is looking his way.

Key seems to be doing his best to keep the mood light, cracking jokes backstage and putting in a valiant effort into goading Taemin into play fighting him. 

Taemin, for his part, seems to be the most affected, following Jinki round backstage almost constantly. Jinki is becoming used to the feeling of Taemin’s small hand tucked into the side of his t-shirt or sleeve, feels like they’ve gone back in time 10 years. He can’t really think of what to do in response except run his hand through Taemin’s hair under the pretence of sorting it out for him, return the tactile affection Taemin seems to be craving. 

The only one of them who seems unaffected is Minho, Jinki can feel his big eyes follow him round the backstage areas and waiting rooms but when Jinki turns to look at him, he’s always waiting with an easy smile. Jinki can feel his internal panic lessen whenever Minho’s eyes wash over him. 

Minho also does his best in looking after the others, indulging Kibum when he predictably turns his sadness into restlessness, letting Kibum drag him to the stylist's station and change his outfit twice, only complaining when Kibum tries to add a bum bag over top of his suit jacket, despite multiple protests about it being ‘very in’. 

When Taemin’s not following Jinki around, Minho always has an eye on him, prods at him and goads him into playing with him, teases him over nothing things, babies him until Taemin is rolling his eyes and pouting at everyone to try and get them to come to his defence. 

They always do and Minho pretends to be offend, complains loudly and dramatically about favouritism as he flops onto the waiting room couch next to Jinki. 

 

It’s their last big event in Japan, Tokyo Dome packed with their fans. 

Taemin holds his pinkie up in the air “Please promise you’ll wait for us!” he yells into the mic. The crowd screams, yells back a collective ‘yes’. Taemin turns to Jinki, puts a hand on his shoulder, “They say they promise they’ll wait for you.” 

Jinki has to bend over, it’s just so much. He feels like he can’t keep all his feelings contained in his body, feels like he’s on the brink of sobbing uncontrollably. He sucks in a breath as he stands back up, fights a smile onto his face. 

Minho starts talking straight away, draws the attention and camera back to him. Does what he does best in taking care of all of them. 

 

“Yah,” Jinki hears from the other end of the table halfway through the fansign. “Stop worrying about Onew hyung’s enlistment. It’s not happening yet.” Minho’s voice toes the line between stern and playful as it comes over the speaker system. 

Jinki looks over as Minho’s putting the mic back down, raises his eyebrows when Minho looks over at him. Minho briefly meets his eye but it’s all public-idol-Minho so his face is giving nothing away. 

Jinki turns back to the girl in front of him, waiting to get her album signed. “He’s just worried about who’s going to make his dinner,” he says to her, causing her to laugh sweetly behind her hand.

 

* * *

 

In the end it becomes the inescapable question; ‘what’s Minho going to do when you enlist?’

His hyungs ask when he meets them for cold soba, the coordi-noonas ask while he’s with them late night standing still as possible as they size clothes for an appearance, his parents ask when he makes his less-than-regular phone call home. 

He tells them all the same thing, ‘I don’t know, I’m sure he’ll be just fine though’.

Because he doesn’t know, because he’s refused to have that conversation with the only person who knows the answer.

 

Kibum texts him mid-week.

_Come over for dinner. Bring wine._

_Not for yourself obv._

_But it would be rude not to bring some._

Jinki reads all three texts at once, doesn’t know what to make of them. Kibum doesn’t invite him over for dinner. Ever. Kibum has dinner parties with fun, eccentric, flamboyant people, fashion designers and theatre actors, bright, sparkly people whose humour is more biting than his. Sometimes Minho gets an invite but it’s rare and normally only if Kibum’s trying to set him up with one of his friends. 

_Minho is still out of town._ Jinki sends back, unsure of what Kibum’s looking for.

_I know…_

And well that just feels ominous Jinki thinks before going to shower and try and find something to wear that Key would find suitable.

 

When Jinki gets to his house there is no one else there; Kibum is in sweats and an oversized jumper. He takes the bottle of wine from Jinki with one hand while using his other to try and keep his dogs from squeezing round his legs before he can usher him inside. 

Dinner’s actually pretty pleasant, Kibum orders Thai in and they talk about the comeback, about how’s Taemin’s tour is progressing, Kibum’s latest variety. “Minho came on the show for my birthday”, Kibum mentions shovelling more food into his mouth, “when are you going to come on?”

Jinki laughs, he doesn’t do that anymore, go on variety to keep his face in the public eye. Kibum is still watching him expectant, “Oh, uh, I won’t?” It comes out as a question and Jinki cringes before narrowing his eyes at him, he knows Jinki doesn’t want to be on variety shows. 

Kibum is as always unfazed by Jinki reproach, merely hums, “Well, I think maybe it’s time you forgave yourself a little.” 

It’s so typically Kibum, to just say it out loud. 

Jinki feels hot in his sweater, can feel himself starting to sweat. He hums non-committedly, pats at the moisture on his face with the back of his hand. He doesn’t know what Kibum wants him to say.

Apparently he doesn’t need him to say anything because he keeps talking as if he doesn’t notice Jinki’s discomfort, “So is Minho going to start moving his stuff into your place before you enlist or are you guys gonna stay in the dorms till you’re both back?”

Jinki feels like when Kibum does all the talking in English interviews, like he knows all the words but can’t seem to understand what they mean all together. Kibum is looking at him like he’s expecting an answer, “Uh, no plans. For, you know, anything?” Jinki has no idea what he’s supposed to say.

Kibum rolls his eyes as he uses his chopsticks to pick the cashews out of one of the takeaway containers, hoarding them on his own plate. “You two are ridiculous. This situation is ridiculous. How exactly do you see this going?” He seems genuinely exasperated. 

Jinki is now sweating the way he sweats at a dance practice, Kibum hands over a paper napkin but otherwise doesn’t show any sympathy. 

“I mean are you seriously just going to leave for enlistment without discussing anything with Minho? That’s so mean. I know I tease him, but he’s our family and I love him, Jinki. You’re being mean now.” Kibum seems to be edging into being genuinely angry now, eyes bright as he stares Jinki down. 

Jinki can’t really look at him, he hates it when Kibum is angry at him, hates conflict in general but he also doesn’t know what Kibum wants him to do. “I mean, there isn’t really that much to discuss?” Kibum scoffs and Jinki feels his anger start to rise in reply to Kibum’s. “There isn’t. I’m going to enlist and Minho’s going to move on with his life. He’s going to meet a nice girl and get engaged and then enlist as well. And when I get out it won’t be our home anymore and I can move into my apartment.” 

They stare each other down for a few seconds before Kibum lets out a noise of frustration as he pushes back from the table and angrily starts clearing the plates. Jinki tries to grab the last couple of pieces of meat from his plate before Kibum takes it away, chopsticks hanging in mid-air as Kibum stalks back to kitchen with them. 

Jinki doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do now, wonders if he’s pissed Kibum off enough that he has to leave. 

He reaches down to where Garcon has been sitting, leaning against his leg for the majority of them meal, pets his head a few times before leaning down so he can look him in the eyes as he talks to him, “Should I follow your dad? I think he wants to yell at me more.” Having discussed his plan of action with the dog, he stands up and follows after Kibum to the kitchen. 

Kibum’s standing at the counter of his kitchen drinking a glass of the wine Jinki brought, “Don’t speak to me yet, I’m still mad.” Jinki nods his head in understanding, reaching down to pet Garcon some more now that he’s followed after them into the kitchen. “And don’t pet my dog, dog pats are for people I’m not annoyed at.”

Jinki stands back up from his crouch and raises his hands in mock surrender.

Now that he’s said it, said the big ugly thing he’s been keeping inside, now that he’s yelled it? He feels a little better. Yeah, he has to leave and that’s going to be the end of his and Minho’s home together. An end to the cosy life they’ve made together. And it hurts, it hurts in a way he thinks he’s going to feel for a really long time. But not saying it? Pushing it down and in the process pushing Minho away? Turns out that hurt more.

Kibum doesn’t seem to feel better, he’s started pacing with his glass of wine. “God, I hate you both.” He turns back round to point at him, Jinki holds his hand back up from where he had slowly been lowering them back to his sides. “Neither of you have any idea how annoying you are.” 

Jinki opens his mouth, feels the need to defend Minho since he’s not here to do it himself. It’s not Minho’s fault Jinki’s inability to have a conversation like a grown adult is making everything awful between them.

Kibum waves his hand in their air to stop him “I feel like whatever you are going to say isn’t helpful and is going to annoy me more so I need you to not say it and to just listen to me.” Jinki thinks there hasn’t been a time in the last 11 years when Kibum’s let him get away with not listening to him so he doesn’t know why he thinks that might have changed now. 

“Jinki, you have to talk to him. It’s not fair to either of you to let this keep going on like this. I know it’s hard. But sometimes being a human is just doing the hard things even when you know it’s going to hurt.” Jinki realises with stunning clarity that Kibum knows. Kibum knows that Jinki is in love with Minho, has probably known for years, has let him deal with it himself and is now stepping in when it threatens to capsize him and Minho both. 

Jinki feels the strength of his love for Kibum—protective, loyal Kibum—always shrewdly watching over them. “Also, I hate it when Minho is sad because then he won’t listen to my problems, so I need you to fix it.” Kibum raises his eyebrow at him “Like I really need you to have fixed this yesterday.” Jinki can’t help but let out a laugh at that, pulls Kibum in for a hug. 

“Yah,” Kibum yells out, but he’s putting his wine glass down on the counter, wrapping his thin arms around Jinki’s body.

“I love you, Kibummie,” Jinki whispers into his shoulder.

Kibum lets out a huff, pulls away from him to pick back up his wine glass, “Yeah, yeah, you too, obviously.”

 

* * *

 

Jinki is woken up at 7 in the morning by a phone call from Minho. 

He always calls every couple of days when he’s away, to check if Jinki’s eaten, if he’s gone out to see friends. Jinki thinks it’s because it’s easier to lie through text message and Minho is terrified of not knowing the whole picture again. They’re all carrying their trauma in different ways.

It must be just after midnight for Minho. He sounds soft and a little hazy as he calls him ‘hyung’, talks about some football he watched, asks what Jinki’s been up to. 

Jinki still half asleep, has burrowed back under the covers after reaching for his phone, he talks softly about what he’s been doing, the meetings he’s had, the people seen. The things that will let Minho know that he’s fine, that he’s taking care of himself. Answers the questions Minho really wants to know. 

 

He tells him he went to Kibum’s for dinner and he can tell Minho is surprised. “Oh,” he sounds more awake now, “was he setting you up with someone?” 

Jinki laughs softy at how that’s the furthest thing from what the dinner turned out be “No, it was just the two of us,” Minho makes a more inquisitive noise and Jinki can picture him cocking his head to the side as he makes it. “I dunno Min, I think it was kind of an intervention.” Jinki opens his eyes, realising how that sounds “Not that there’s anything to worry about,” he hurries to reassure.

Minho lets out what Jinki thinks could have been a chuckle had it not obviously lodged itself somewhere in Minho’s chest.

It feels easier to say it, when it’s still dark, autumn rain hitting the windows and Minho nearly half a world away but still feeling close, hearing his soft flow of breath in his ear. It feels safe and cosy so he lets himself feel the terror and then takes a deep breath and counts to seven as he exhales, “I think it was an intervention about us. Well about me. But about me not talking about us.” Jinki rolls his eyes at himself and turns to press his entire face into the pillow. 

He can’t even hear Minho’s breathing now, thinks the blood pounding in his ears might be drowning it out, but he hears the single “Oh?”

“Yeah, maybe about how I haven’t let us talk about what we’re—I mean you, and I suppose me—so us, what we’re going to do when I enlist.” Jinki doesn’t give in to the urge to throw his phone across the room, but it’s close, keeps talking instead. “That’s hyung’s fault Minho, hyung should have been better about...” Jinki doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore, doesn’t know what he’s saying. It had felt so easy to start but now he’s realised that if you pull one thread of this, the whole thing threatens to unravel and Minho will know. He’ll know all the dark, desperate things Jinki’s been hiding from him.

“Jinki.” Minho’s voice cuts him off. “Don’t do that, don’t talk to me like that.” His voice is bordering on sharp. They’re silent for a bit, just listening to each other breath across the line. 

 

Minho starts talking again and Jinki realises he was waiting for his breathing to even out again, for when it didn’t sound like Jinki was on the verge of hyperventilating himself into a panic attack. “So, I suppose the first question would be, do you have a date?”

Minho knows he does, knows these sort of things are planned months in advance by the company; he’s starting Jinki off easy, soft-balling him some questions to ease him into it.

Jinki tells him when and where, what the company has arranged. Tells him what his parents had said, the hilariously bad advice Jungsoo had given him over dinner. They talk a little about how Jinki feels about it, how he’s worried about his back being a problem, how he’s doesn’t really want to learn to shoot a gun. The stuff Jinki hasn’t said to anyone else. 

The conversation peters out after an hour, both of them listening to each other breath across the line. Jinki thinks Minho might be falling asleep, checks his watch and calculates the time difference, 1 in the morning. 

 

He’s just about to tell Minho to hang up and go to sleep when Minho start talking again, sounding soft and vulnerable, “You could have talked to me about it. We talk about everything, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t talk about this. It concerned me too, you know?”

Minho is tugging at the thread and Jinki feels like it’s all going to unspool in his hands right now on the phone while they’re half a world apart. He supposes as far as circumstances go, this is okay, not having to see it in Minho’s face directly, getting to have the facade of protection that being under his covers provides. 

“Yeah, yeah I know Min,” he takes a breath, “I guess talking about it to you made it real. Made the fact that this was all ending real.”

Minho is silent a beat, obviously processing it. “What do you mean? We’re still doing Shinee, you said so yourself. It’s not ending. It’s just on hold for a bit. It’s just a pause right?”

“Yeah, we’ll still be Shinee, Min,” Minho doesn’t get it, doesn’t feel the looming absence of their life together. “I mean _this_ is ending. Our,” Jinki doesn’t know how to say it without exposing the desperate way he feels about it, “cohabitation?”

“Oh”

“I was just sad about that ending and everyone kept asking what our plans were, when we moving out the dorm, what you were going to do when I was gone, and I just didn’t want to think about the fact that it wasn’t going to be our life anymore. It would be mine and yours, you know, separate, that we weren’t going to live together after this year.” It’s as close to the truth as Jinki thinks he’s capable of.

Minho is quiet on the other end of the line “Aren’t we?”

“Huh?”

“Well, you’ll go and then I’ll be there six months later and then in no time we’ll both be back. Why does it have to change? Why can’t it just be a pause too?”

“Min you’ll want different things in 2 years, it’s a long time, you’ll want to be...” Jinki can’t do it, can’t bring himself to bring up the spectre of Minho’s future wife, “settled.”

The line is silent for a beat. Then two. “I am settled,” Minho mainly just sounds confused.

Jinki huffs out an exasperated sigh, trying to convince Minho of Jinki’s own impending irrelevance in his life is not how he really wants to spend his morning. “No, Min, you’ll want different things. Permanent life things. You’ll be older you won’t want to live in a dorm with your group member.”

“Hyung,” Minho sounds completely unfazed, “Listen to me. I am settled.”

Jinki doesn’t know what to do, he’s pretty sure his desire has twisted Minho’s words into something he doesn’t mean. Has turned Minho’s word into something big and important to him when they’re really small and careless. 

“Jinki," he says softly, "I don’t know the future, I’m just saying that it’s been 11 years. I'd like to think that’s enough time for me to make the decision that this is what I want, is everything I could conceivably need.”

“Oh.” Jinki doesn’t know what else to say. Doesn’t want to acknowledge what he thinks Minho means in case he’s wrong. But he can’t help but feel a little flicker of hope bury itself deep in his chest. 

Minho lets out a laugh, it sounds light in the way it hasn’t in the last couple of months, and Jinki can’t help but join in. They’re not fixed, there’s still so much he doesn’t have the answers to. Still too much left unsaid. But they’re not broken anymore.

 

“Yah Minho, you should go to sleep now, it’s 2 in the morning,” Jinki says as he stretches his arms out above him, touches the wall before scratching at his bare stomach, gives his cock a perfunctory squeeze in hello.

He feels light and happy, he thinks about getting up and finishing his conversation with Minho as he makes breakfast, but he also thinks about letting himself spend a little more time in bed, strokes his cock a little in contemplation.

“Hyung,” Minho whines, and Jinki takes his hand off his cock as it twitches in response. “Talk to me longer, I’m not tired now.”

“What do you want me to talk about?”

“I dunno, I wish I was home already” Jinki can picture him, lying in the hotel bed, lights from the city illuminating his skin, highlighting soft rise of his hip bones standing out above his low band of his sleep shorts. Jinki hasn’t noticed that he’s been palming himself as Minho talks. 

“Jinki?”

He can’t help the small noise he makes in response.

Minho is silent for a beat. “Don’t you wish I was there too, hyung?’ and there is something in his tone, some dark undercurrent of a promise that makes Jinki swell in his palm.

“Yeah Min, I wish you were here,” Jinki is unsure if what he thinks is happening is actually happening, scared he’s just a pervert getting off to the sound of his best friend’s voice. But it’s so good, lightly running his fingers over himself as he listens to Minho’s breathing get heavier, imagining him here in his bed.

He can hear Minho shuffling against the sheets, hears him inhale and let out a shaky breath. “I wish I was too; wish I was home there with you.”

Jinki can’t help himself, tries to move his mouth away from from his phone as he groans, starts to stroke himself in earnest.

Minho lets out a quick pant at that, follows it with a shaky “Hyung.” He sounds increasingly breathless.

Jinki catches some precum with his thumb, uses it to ease the glide. Minho is breathing heavily now, whining out an occasional ‘hyung’. It’s hot, it’s so unbearably hot, hearing him. Jinki feels like it has to be some sort of fever dream, can’t believe they’re doing this. 

Minho sounds so good, Jinki feels like the sound of his voice moaning in his ear is going to liquefy his bones. “Min,” he’s panting, feels close already, “wish I could see you.” It’s the first tacit acknowledgement that they are doing this, that they’re doing this together.

He can feel Minho’s responding groan low in his stomach. Feels himself growing bolder in response, “Wish you were here so I could put my hands on you, Min. Want to hold you down, wanna feel you.”

“Hyung, hyung,” Minho sounds completely on edge. “Want you in my mouth, want to taste you, want to watch you fall apart, want to be the one to take you apart,” he’s babbling but it’s so much, it’s everything to Jinki, and he punches out a groan as he spills over his fist.

Minho isn’t saying anything now, past the point of coherent sentences, whining across the line. He sounds so close, ready to follow Jinki over the edge.

Jinki cringes a little as he says it, the post-orgasm haze having cleared just enough for him to feel awkward, unsure of his footing now, but he knows in his bones that it’s what Minho wants to hear. “Min,” he says, voice coming out gravelly and dark, “come for hyung.” Jinki thinks it also might do something for him too as his dick twitches as he listens to Minho come in response to his words. 

He listens to Minho pant as he comes down from his orgasm before reaching into his bedside table to get a tissue to wipe his hand off with.

Jinki feels his brain trying to work it’s way up to a panic. What is he supposed to do now? What does this mean for them? Are they going to be okay? “Min?” he can’t help but sound a little hesitant. 

“I’m home in two days, hyung.” Minho sounds half asleep already and Jinki lets out his breath with a smile.

“Okay, Min, I’ll be here.” 

It’s embarrassing but he doesn’t hang up until he hears Minho’s breathing even out into sleep.

 

* * *

 

Jinki gets back to the dorm in the middle of the afternoon. It’s been overcast all day and the clouds finally opened half and hour ago, just in time to make sure to drench Jinki on the walk from his meeting back to the car. 

He grabs his towel from the bathroom on his way to his bedroom, toweling off his hair as he walks. He’s grown out the comeback cut, dyed it a dark, inconspicuous brown. It makes him calmer, knowing he’s less noticeable now, less likely to cause a double take in the street. 

He’s unbuttoning his jeans when he turns and notices Minho. He’s curled up asleep on top of the covers of Jinki’s bed, he wasn’t supposed to be home till late tonight. 

Jinki hangs his towel over the back of his desk chair before moving across the room towards him and sitting gently on the side of the bed. 

It’s amazing how much younger Minho looks now that he’s grown his hair out. His face is lax with sleep and Jinki gently brushes a piece of hair away from his eyes.

Jinki doesn’t think he’s ever been so scared for a moment to end in his life, not waiting for the outcome of his SM audition, not standing backstage before their debut. He leans over to put his head closer to his knees; he thinks there is a pretty high probability he’s going to start hyperventilating soon. 

He hears Minho shuffling round behind him. The blood rushing in his ears makes it impossible to tell if he’s woken up or is just moving in his sleep until he feels Minho’s warm hand against his lower back. 

“Hey hyung,” Jinki can just see Minho out of the corner of his eye, he looks half asleep and completely unconcerned about Jinki’s impending panic attack. He tugs a little at the back of Jinki’s t-shirt, “lay down. Nap first.” 

Jinki doesn’t know what comes second—after the nap—thinks he’s on the precipice of getting everything he wants, is terrified that he won’t. But Minho doesn’t seem too concerned, starts tugging more insistently to get Jinki to lay down, so Jinki does.

Minho whines straight away, “Hyung, your jeans are wet. Off, off, off,” he sleepily chants as Jinki groans but stands to finish taking off is jeans. 

Jinki tugs down the covers on the bed and cajoles and manhandles a sleepy, whiney Minho into getting under them before climbing into the bed as well. Minho kicks his own sweatpants off before tugging insistently on Jinki’s arm to get him to spoon up behind him, bracket his larger body with his, their hands intertwined over Minho’s stomach. 

He thinks he’s not going to be able to fall asleep, too many thoughts running through his mind. But sure enough, with Minho pressed up against him—feeling his slow steady breathing rise and fall through his body—he’s lulled to sleep in no time.

 

Jinki wakes up when Minho starts rustling himself awake, the rain’s gotten harder while they were sleeping and it makes Jinki feel safe to be tucked in bed with Minho’s eternally warm body pressed tightly up against his chest as the rain pelts at the window.

Minho eventually rouses enough to roll over, nudge his head up under Jinki’s jaw. “Hi hyung, I’m home,” he rumbles, his lips brushing against the skin of Jinki’s neck. 

Jinki huffs out a laugh as he brings his hand up to cup the back of Minho’s head. 

Minho pushes himself back from Jinki’s body enough to be able to look up at him. Jinki can feel the energy between them, feels both terrified and exhilarated.

Minho slowly brings a hand up to cup the side of Jinki's face, doesn’t break eye contact as he uses the hand to gently draw his face down. 

Jinki shudders an exhale against Minho’s lips before closing the distance between them. Everything about the kiss is slow and gentle. Minho’s palm and long fingers gently pressed to the side of his face, guiding his head closer, Minho’s plump lips softly parting to press against Jinki’s. 

Minho let’s out a whine as he parts his lips, moves his hand to the back of Jinki’s neck to pull him closer. The sound shorts out Jinki’s higher brain function, urges him into pushing Minho back into the bed and climbing into his lap, swinging a leg over to straddle his thighs. Minho only sighs contently at the first touch of Jinki’s tongue to his.

When Jinki breaks away from Minho’s mouth to run his lips down the length of his neck all he can hear is Minho’s panting above, can only feel the places where they are pressed against each other, from Minho’s hands cradling the back of his head to Minho’s lap occasionally making an abortive thrust up against Jinki, the press of his cock against him, progressively harder each time.

It’s so much, Jinki feels overwhelmed by having Minho’s body underneath him, laid out like it’s something he can have. He wants it so bad, even if it’s only this once. Can’t imagine passing up the opportunity.

But as soon as the idea that this might be the only time he’ll get to do this enters his head it’s all he can think about. Hates his brain for not being able to set it aside to deal with in the aftermath. He’s still touching Minho, still running his lips over his collar bones, but his brain is already 20 miles ahead of him, thinking about tomorrow when he'll have to pretend he doesn’t know what Minho’s lower lip tastes like. 

He runs his hand down Minho’s side underneath his t-shirt and he can’t focus on the feeling of his skin underneath his finger tips only the fact that this could be the only time he gets to feel it. “Hey,” Minho’s voice doesn’t seem so breathy anymore, his eyes no longer unfocused with lust. Jinki pulls back a little more to look at him. “Are you…” Minho trails off, gives his shoulders a squeeze, Jinki didn’t even notice when Minho put his hand there. 

Minho seems to steal himself, “Jinki, do you not want to do this anymore?” He looks away to the side now, a corner of his mouth pulls up. “Coz I know I kind of ambushed you, being in your bed and all, I just thought we were maybe on the same page?” he darts his eyes back to Jinki and away again, “but now it maybe feels like you’re actually not into this….” 

He has taken his hands off Jinki now, tucked them close into his chest, fluttering them like he wants to gesture in the limited space between their bodies. “Which is fine, hyung, if you were more theoretically into this than in, uh, practice. It’ll be fine, we can pretend it didn’t happen.” 

Jinki still has one of his hand up Minho’s shirt, it’s splayed against the side of his rib cage and he can feel it every time Minho inhales. He rubs his thumb against his skin, lets himself feel the smooth heat, lets himself listen to the hitch in Minho’s breath.

“I want this,” he whispers, before bending down to be closer to Minho. “I just want this so much,” he says into the space between them, sucks in a shaky breath and makes himself be brave for Minho. “I’ve wanted this for a while and I think I’m going to want this forever, so I need you to say if that’s not okay.”

Minho is looking up at him, his big eyes as wide as they go. He reaches a hand up to palm Jinki’s jaw, draws him in closer again. “Yeah,’ he breathes out against Jinki’s lips, “Yeah hyung, I promise it’s okay.” 

For once Jinki lets himself believe. He closes the distance between them and only focuses on the feeling of Minho pressed up against him, his tongue slipping over his bottom lip into his mouth. 

 

Jinki sits up enough to pull Minho’s shirt over his head, feels Minho’s hands at the bottom of his, so lets him do the same. Minho is splayed out underneath him, smooth tan skin only interrupted by his boxer shorts and Jinki’s paler hands pressing into his chest. Jinki is mesmerised by the sight, gently brushes his finger over a nipple and watches in awe as Minho keens. 

“Oh shit,” Jinki can’t help but breath out at the sight. “Shit Min, I want to fuck you so bad.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Minho is chanting before Jinki can even get the end of the sentence out, trying to push his boxers down before Jinki has a chance to sit up from his lap. 

He helps Minho get them off before sitting back down on his thighs and taking his cock in his hand, crushing their lips together while he strokes him, feels him swell to full hardness in his hand, before moving his lips down lower. 

“Been thinking about this for so long,” he breaths against the hard planes of Minho’s stomach as he moves further down his body, feels the muscles twitch underneath his lips. 

“Hyung,” Minho whines as Jinki takes him into his mouth. “Fuck, couldn’t stop thinking about it after our phone call. Couldn’t stop thinking about being here in your bed.”

He’s threaded his fingers through Jinki’s hair, doesn’t push but starts unconsciously tugging whenever Jinki does something right. Jinki hums in response.

“Jinks,” he says tugging more insistently than before, groans as Jinki lets his cock slip out of his mouth and wipes his chin with the back of his hand. “Fuck, alright come on, want you to fuck me,” he says as he runs a finger over Jinki’s abused bottom lip.

Jinki leans up over him, reaches into the back of his bedside table draw to find lube and a condom. When he finally locates them, Minho pulls him down to crash their lips together again. 

Jinki smiles at him when Minho releases him, throws the condom at his chest. “Read me the expiry date on that, I’m not wearing my contacts.” he says as he uncaps the lube.

Minho can’t help but laugh as he fumbles the condom up to his line of sight.

“Shut up,” Jinki says, giving Minho’s inner thigh a light slap, “it’s been a while.”

Minho smiles down at Jinki where he’s settled between his thighs and it’s so soft Jinki feels his face heat in response. “Don’t worry,” Minho says handing the condom back to him, “it’s good.”

Jinki looks up at Minho, his long, toned limbs sprawled out against his sheets. “Have you ever… with a… before?” feels himself blush, more at his inability to get words out.

“Yeah, once.” Minho huffs out a laugh at whatever expression Jinki’s face has made without his consent, like Minho hasn’t just upended Jinki’s entire world view, “I’ll tell you later.” 

“Shit, yeah,” Jinki manages to get out.

“And I, you know... myself” Minho seems more shy about this admission and Jinki runs his hands up the inside of his thighs in response, tucks the image away for later.

“Right. Jesus,” Jinki breaths before tipping Minho’s hips up, rubbing some lube around his rim.

“Jesus,” he can’t help but whisper again as he slowly sinks a finger into Minho’s pliant body for the first time. Starts to slowly pump it in and out as Minho shudders out a breath in response.

Jinki wants to take his time, work Minho slow and methodical with his fingers until he can’t stand it, until he sobs for Jinki to fuck him. He thinks he could happily do this for hours, as he feels Minho’s hole clench around his three fingers. He’s so responsive, Jinki wants to spend days documenting the sounds he can wring out of him. 

But today isn’t that day as evidenced by Minho kicking him in the side with a whine when Jinki suggests it. “Hyung,” he groans out as Jinki brushes a finger over his prostate. “Not gonna last. Have to fuck me. Please.” 

He looks so wrecked when Jinki looks up at him that it ignites a sense of urgency in Jinki, makes him realise how much he needs to feel him, how much he needs to be inside him. “Okay Min. Okay, hyung’s got you.” he says, rubbing his stomach briefly to settle him as he pulls his fingers out and wipes them on the sheets before reaching for the condom. 

“Come on, turn over.” He says, gently tugging at Minho’s hips, until he’s on all fours on the bed in front of him.

When Jinki pushes into Minho for the first time his whole world goes white. It’s been so long and it’s Minho and he feels it threaten to consume him. But more than anything, he wants it to be good for Minho. There’s still a small part of him that feels he has to give him a reason to stay. So he waits, buried in Minho’s body, until he’s whining at him to move before pulling out and thrusting back in again.

He manages to keep a steady pace going, watching in awe as his cock sinks into Minho’s pliant body over and over again. 

He can’t help but run his hand down his spine as he increases the pace, the other hand anchored steady on his hip. Minho’s skin is glistening with sweat now, making Jinki dig his fingers in harder to keep their purchase on his toned hip.

It’s so much, Jinki knows he’s not going to last long, needs to be closer to Minho, so he reaches a hand round to palm his chest, briefly runs a finger over his nipple before tugging him back until Minho is seated fully on his lap.

He lets out a loud whine as Jinki wraps his fingers around his cock, strokes him to the same rhythm that he’s moving in his lap. ‘Hyung, hyung, not gonna last, wanted it so bad, not gonna last,” Minho babbles as he works himself on Jinki’s cock.

“It’s okay Min, come for me. Wanna feel it,” Jinki breaths into Minho’s ear before kissing the side of his neck, moving his lips across to scrap his teeth against his shoulder as he twists his hand on the up stroke. 

And that’s enough to push Minho over the edge. He whines out one last ‘hyung’ as Jinki continues to work his cock till he spills over his hand.

The sound of Minho coming, the feel of him tightening around Jinki’s cock sends him over the edge too and he rests his head between Minho’s shoulder blades as he rides his orgasm out buried in Minho’s body. 

Together it’s all they can do to slump forward on to the bed to catch their breath. Jinki gently pulls out of Minho’s lax body, discards the condom. 

Minho looks ready to fall back asleep so Jinki hauls himself back up to grab his discarded towel and wipes Minho then himself down, before getting back into his bed next to him and pulling the covers back up.

Minho’s still lying on his stomach, head facing towards him, he squints one eye open when Jinki lies down beside him. “I’m gonna fall asleep again. Jetlag. Stay with me?” he says as he wraps one arm over Jinki’s side to pull him in closer. 

Jinki turns his head to Minho, closes the few centimetres between their lips. It’s soft and gentle, Minho’s already falling asleep but he sluggishly moves his mouth against Jinki in response, “Yeah Min, I’ll be here.”

 

* * *

 

“Hyung, I want to get a dog”, Minho says, his eyes are open as wide as they will go, his smile is doing the thing where he knows he’s being a brat but also knows he’s going to get away with it. It’s a good look on him Jinki thinks as he tucks the top sheet in. “Don’t you think a dog would be fun?”

Jinki looks around their room, the framed candid photograph of the five of them is leaning against the wall on top of their dresser waiting to be hung. The last of the boxes they need to unpack are neatly stacked in the corner and Minho is standing across the bed from him, in the middle of trying to stuff his pillow into its pillow case. 

Jinki will leave in a month, enlist like everyone else his age has had to do, Minho will follow soon after. But it’s just a pause. And when they come back they’ll be coming back here, to the bed Minho bought that’s sitting inside the apartment Jinki did. 

They’ll be coming back home to each other. 

“Yeah Min, a dog does sound fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come chat: timesuck2000 on both [tumblr](http://timesuck2000.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/timesuck2000)


End file.
